The desire for quality three-dimensional viewing capabilities has exploded alongside the expanding area of computers and the subset of computing technology known as 3-D gaming. The science of creating an image system capable of producing the required left and right images necessary for that particular image to be seen three-dimensionally has been refined to a point where the quality available from the images displayed cannot be fully appreciated by the current viewing technology designed to enable a user to see the images in their intended form.
Current technology typically involves using polarized lenses in a set of glasses to isolate the images being viewed by either eye of the user or users. A result of the use of polarized lenses is that the best resolution from a given stereoscopic image occurs when the user assumes a position in which the "horizon line" of the user and the "horizon line" of the image have the same orientation. To further explain, if the user's head was tilted during use, a dual image fading from one polarization (e.g., vertical) to another polarization (e.g., horizontal) will occur.
This dual image fading occurs due to the physics of polarized light. Most light is represented by electromagnetic plane waves which are an incoherent mixture of wavelengths, polarizations, amplitudes and phases. Half of this light energy has a first polarization and the other half has a second polarization. To produce a three-dimensional image, it is necessary to first encode the left image with one polarizing filter, P1, and then encode the right image with another polarizing filter, P2. Someone wishing to view the image in its intended form would be required to wear a pair of passive glasses with the left lens polarized as P1 and the right lens polarized as P2. This will allow the image intended only for the left eye to pass through the left lens and into the eye as well as permitting only what is to be seen by the right eye to pass through the right lens. The effect of this polarization is maximized when the light, originating at the image, coming into the lenses of the glasses travels on a path orthogonal to the flat surface of the lenses. Twisting of the glasses will skew the polarizing filters and in turn skew the image allowed through each lens and into each eye. The result is a distorted image with elements from both the right and left images being let into each eye.
During gaming, a user tends to move his head about while interacting with a 3-D environment. This head movement results in the user viewing distorted images causing the user to lose focus of the intended image and oftentimes view information the opposing gamer intended to keep hidden.
Additional functionality desired from 3-D viewing glasses is the ability to interactively switch between interlaced polarized images. For example, imagine a user is viewing an image based upon light polarized at angle X. The user can readjust the polarization of the 3-D viewing glasses to accept polarized light at angle Y allowing a different image to be seen. The ability to access a multitude of images from one image source enhances the utility of both the image display apparatus and the 3-D viewing glasses. Applications for such an advancement include flight glasses for pilots, enhanced gaming, as well as others.
What is needed is a solution for such an image viewing system capable of adjusting the polarization of an image viewing apparatus to compensate for changes in the orientation of the image viewing apparatus to thereby allow the user to move about freely without concern for image integrity and further capable of limiting image access to the user which it is intended.